Roddy Doyle – författare

We last saw Henry Smart, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawl into the Utah desert to die - only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. The Dead Republic opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's latest film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, who has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust.Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker. When he is caught in a bomb blast, he loses his leg for the second time. He is claimed as a hero, and before long Henry will discover he has other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...

With contributions by: William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Chigozie Obioma, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Philip Pullman, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, S.F.Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus Zusak'This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection.In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets.'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime.'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right.'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.'Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading.Inspired by Robert MacfarlaneCurated by Jennie Orchard

Short, sometimes sweet and often strange, here are seven great stories by some of the best writers from around the world...Anne EnrightYoko OgawaDavid SzalayNadifa MohamedAndrey KurkovYael van der Woudenand Roddy DoyleThe Booker Prizes celebrate the world’s best fiction. In this book, Roddy Doyle, who won in 1993, has chosen a range of brilliant stories written by other winners and nominees. Discover short stories that give us whole worlds.A Quick Read for 2026

‘A brilliant, one-of-a-kind writer’ DAVID NICHOLLSAt sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, survivor – is finally living her life.A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four grown children. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside.That is until Paula’s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, a loving wife and mother, “a success” – Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind.Over the next few days, as Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, they find themselves embracing the bruised but beautiful symmetry of what each means to the other.‘His best yet…full of energy and life’ OBSERVER‘Reading [Paula Spencer’s] voice for the first time sent a pang of recognition through me, followed by love’ ANNE ENRIGHT‘Storytelling genius’ i PAPERA GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2024

From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.‘He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It’s as simple as that’Paula Spencer is thirty-nine, the mother of four and learning to live without Charlo, her violent, abusive husband.Paula’s started drinking more and dreaming more, taking herself back to her contented childhood and audacious teenage years. Everything was better then, not least the music, the soundtrack to her romance with Charlo. As the past floats by and mingles with the present Paula Spencer finds herself coming alive, in all her vulnerability and her strength.‘Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood’ The Times

'ENDLESSLY ABSORBING' Mail on Sunday'MASTERPIECE' The Times'RUTHLESS' Daily Telegraph'INCOMPARABLE' Sunday Mirror'SEARINGLY HONEST' The SunThe No.1 bestselling memoir of Roy Keane, former captain of Manchester United and IrelandIn a stunning collaboration with Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle, Roy Keane gives a brutally honest account of his days as a player, the highs and lows of his managerial career and his life as an outspoken ITV pundit.As part of a tiny elite of football players, Roy Keane has had a life like no other. His status as one of football's greatest stars is undisputed, but what of the challenges beyond the pitch? How did he succeed in coming to terms with life as a former Manchester United and Ireland leader and champion, reinventing himself as a manager and then a broadcaster, and cope with the psychological struggles this entailed?THE SECOND HALF blends anecdote and reflection in Roy Keane's inimitable voice. The result is an unforgettable personal odyssey which fearlessly challenges the meaning of success.

An imaginative short story inspired by real events, taken from the collection, BEYOND THE STARS, and written and illustrated by two award-winning talentsTold from the perspective of the Russian dog Tsygan, this is the story of the first living creatures to be sent into space – the `star dogs’ of the title.Roddy Doyle’s typically accessible voice is complemented by the illuminating illustrations of Steve Simpson, together immersing a new generation of young readers in the incredible true story of the Soviet space dogs, one of the twentieth century’s true feats of science.

'A masterpiece' Irish Times'Exhilarating' Daily TelegraphBorn in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast.By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bikeDiscover Roddy Doyle's latest novel THE WOMEN BEHIND THE DOOR now.

It's 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry Smart, on the run from Dublin, falls on his feet. He is a handsome man with a sandwich board, behind which he stashes hooch for the speakeasies of the Lower East Side. He catches the attention of the mobsters who run the district and soon there are eyes on his back and men in the shadows. It is time to leave, for another America...Chicago is wild and new, and newest of all is the music. Furious, wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. His music is everywhere, coming from every open door, every phonograph. But Armstrong is a prisoner of his colour; there are places a black man cannot go, things he cannot do. Armstrong needs a man, a white man, and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.

Ten years on from The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Booker Prize-winning author, Roddy Doyle, returns to one of his greatest characters, Paula Spencer.Paula Spencer is turning forty-eight, and hasn’t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They're grand kids, but she worries about Leanne.Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job seem to come from Eastern Europe. You can get a cappuccino in the café and the checkout girls are all Nigerian. Ireland is certainly changing, but then so too is Paula – dry, and determined to put her family back together again. ‘A phenomenally rewarding read… Could not be bettered in its depiction of the minutiae of the life of a recovering alcoholic: relentless, trivial, terrified’ Observer

*A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOKER PRIZE GEM* WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1993Paddy Clarke is ten years old.Paddy Clarke lights fires. Paddy Clarke's name is written in wet cement all over Barrytown. Paddy Clarke's heroes are Father Damien (and the lepers), Geronimo and George Best. Paddy Clarke knows the exact moment to knock a dead scab from his knee. Paddy Clarke hates his brother Francis because that’s the rule. Paddy Clarke loves his Ma and Da, but it seems like they don't love each other, and Paddy wants to understand, but can't.

Bullfighting moves from classrooms to graveyards, local pubs to bullrings; featuring an array of men at their working day and at rest, taking stock and reliving past glories. Each is concerned with loss in different ways - of their place in the world, of power, virility, love - of the boom days and the Celtic Tiger. Brilliantly observed, funny and moving, the stories in Bullfighting present a new vision of contemporary Ireland, of its woes and triumphs.

Longlisted for the 2015 IMPAC Dublin Literary AwardJimmy Rabbitte is back.The man who invented the Commitments back in the eighties is now forty-seven, with a loving wife, four kids ... and bowel cancer. He isn’t dying, he thinks, but he might be.Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle. On his path through Dublin he meets two of the Commitments – Outspan, whose own illness is probably terminal, and Imelda Quirk, still as gorgeous as ever. This warm, funny novel is about friendship and family, about facing death and opting for life.Includes the short story Jimmy Jazz

A Ghostly Little Book brings you five brand new spooky stories from five of the best writers on the planetFrom Edgar Allan Poe to Charles Dickens, from Shirley Jackson to Toni Morrison, the greatest writers have always been drawn to that ancient, mysterious thing: the haunting.A Ghostly Little Book is a slim, beautiful testament to the enduring appeal of the spook, a landmark collection of specially composed modern ghost stories from Roddy Doyle, Olga Ravn, Eliza Clark, Tom Crewe and Helen Oyeyemi, five of the most acclaimed and exciting authors at work today.With surprising scares and anguished apparitions, with chance encounters, spectral phones and vengeful spirits, these tales chart the many twists and turns the ghost story might take: strange, unsettling, heartwarming, hilarious and, of course, blood-chilling.

THE PHENOMENAL MEMOIR OF A NATIONAL TREASUREAfter Kellie Harrington won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, the Irish public recognized her as not merely a sporting hero, but a deeply inspirational human being. Now, Kellie tells the story of her unlikely journey to the top, and of the many obstacles and setbacks she overcame along the way.Growing up in Dublin's north inner city, Kellie was in danger of going down the wrong path in life before she discovered boxing. The local boxing club was all-male and initially wouldn't let her join, but she persisted.She was not an overnight success. For years she struggled in international competition. At times she felt unsupported by the national boxing set-up. More than once she considered giving up the sport. But some spark of ambition and love for boxing kept her going, and gradually she made herself world class.Writing with Roddy Doyle, the award-winning author of The Commitments, Kellie tells the story of her unlikely rise to greatness and her continuing dedication to living a normal life - which has involved remaining an amateur boxer and keeping the job she loves, at a Dublin psychiatric hospital. She shares exceptionally vivid and revealing details about being a woman in a historically male sport, and about how she manages her body and her mind. It is a vastly inspiring look inside the life and psychology of a woman who is both brilliantly ordinary and utterly exceptional.

Key features of this text: How to study the text Author and historical background General and detailed summaries Commentary on themes, structure, characters, language and style Glossaries Test questions and issues to consider Essay writing advice Cultural connections Literary terms Illustrations Colour design